IT IS funny how people who are used to scrutinising other people can suddenly change tack once the spotlight is on them. Recently at a literary festival, a local writer who had been detailing his long journey to get his book published despite attempts by some people to censor him found himself on the spot when a member of the audience challenged him on something he allegedly said, which sounded as if he approved of controls on the media. He immediately started berating the reporter who had quoted him, and in the process sounded very much like the people he had been excoriating only a few minutes earlier.
I get the same sense of defensiveness from a few people in the media, now that the spotlight is on them. Suhakam, our Human Rights Commission, announced that they want to set up a panel to look into complaints about the media. And immediately some in the media act aggrieved, complaining that so many laws already shackle them without having more put on them.
I agree that our media is not free in this country. Not only is there censorship, there is certainly a lot of self-censorship for fear of offending certain people. The legislation that governs the media in this country plays a major role in this, and given that it limits information to the public thus denying them the right to make up their own minds about issues, we should all be working towards modifying if not eliminating it altogether. That is within the purview of Suhakam; if the media could make a presentation to them on the human rights violated by the laws that govern them currently, I am sure Suhakam can also take that up.
What we are talking about is not press freedom, unless it means press freedom to report without any regard for ethics (and sometimes even laws). Having a free press is not the same as having an ethical press, and we can see many examples of this from the countries in the world with free media. The press can be biased, racist and sexist.
Our press may not be able to report freely on politics, for instance, but they are quite free with everything else and are not always concerned with ethics. Take, for example, HIV/AIDS. The Prevention of Infectious Diseases Act says that people’s health status is confidential, to be known only to those who need to know. Yet I have heard reporters say that such confidentiality ends when the person dies; therefore it is all right, after a person has died of AIDS, to publish his or her name in the papers, regardless of what suffering it may cause their families. Is this ethical, or even legal? Is the Act intended to be a gag on the press or to protect people from discrimination?
A few years ago, newspaper front pages reported that a woman had been infected with HIV through a blood transfusion in a government hospital. Every day more identifiable tidbits were given about her until finally, unable to stand it anymore, the woman chose to reveal her identity. One newspaper took it further. They hunted down the donor of the infected blood, who had not known until just before then that he was infected, reveal-ed who he was and made him apologise to the woman.
Was it right to force the woman to reveal herself, especially when her family was already suffering from discrimination from her community? Was it right to hunt down the donor? After all, when we donate blood, we donate to anonymous recipients, just as when we receive blood, we receive it from anonymous donors. Was it the fault of the individual or the system that this happened? Does anyone care what happened to the man and his family, so blithely reviled on the front pages?
It is these sorts of issues that people have a right to take up with the media. What do ordinary people do when they feel aggrieved by the media? Do they have no right to complain, because it is news? Does the media have no responsibility for the effect of the reports they publish?
Like any other entity, the media is not perfect. The people who run tt, and those who write and edit reports are not perfect. The people who read, who are written about, whose faces appear on TV, can be very vulnerable to negative effects from the way they are portrayed, precisely because of those imperfections.
Why is there a need for the qualifier “said to be attractive” in describing a woman rescued from prostitution? Have we ever heard male snatch thieves or rapists described as handsome? Why is it considered sensible to remind women that even if they are successful in their careers, they should not neglect their families? Have we ever reminded male high-flyers of this? Is the care of the family solely the woman’s responsibility?
Ordinary people have little avenue for complaints against the media, especially when their rights are infringed by news reports. It is therefore only right that Suhakam should take up their cause. The media should be a bit more open to the possibility that occasionally they do hurt ordinary people, and these people have a right to complain.
The Star Online, September 08, 2004
